The Thief
by Cassatt
Summary: Janeway has a problem, maybe Chakotay can help her solve it?


  


Disclaimer: Paramount owns them, now if they could have only figured out what   
to do with them...   
Rating: PG-13

Summary: The Captain has a little problem, maybe her First Officer can help   
her through it.

_Copyright 2000 Cassatt_

The Thief

"Captain, the time is 0700...Captain, the time is 0700...."

From the place between asleep and awake Kathryn Janeway mumbled "Computer, end alarm."

"Captain, the time..."

"End alarm!" Although to her it sounded like shouting it was not. She drifted back down towards oblivion with the last tendrils of her dream weaving through her memory. ....Chakotay walking in front of her down a sandy path on the coast of the pacific ocean, holding her hand, the breeze off the waves carrying his scent back to her. The need for him so strong that she stumbles, intent as she is on watching his back and not her footing. He turns and gently helps her stand. She feels the cool cotton of his shirt against her face as she leans into his chest, inhaling deeply....

She rolled over and tried to open her eyes, unwilling as she was she knew it was time to get up. As the world came into focus she saw her arm curled in front of her chest. It was inside blue cotton, a long sleeve rolled up at her wrist. _A long sleeve?_ _Oh no, not again..._

She looked down at her front. She was wearing Chakotay's blue shirt, the one he had on the night before at Sandrine's. A cold clutch of fear clamped around her heart.

* * *

In his quarters, Chakotay sat on the edge of his bed trying to wake up. He rubbed his face and eyes uselessly. He had only been drinking synthehol the night before but had stayed up way too late and though alpha duty shift started in less than an hour and a half, his strongest desire was to lay back down and let sleep claim him again. Instead he rose and went to the closet reaching for his robe. He found an empty hangar next to it, where he was certain he had hung his shirt the night before. _Damn, it happened again!_ And he had slept right through it. Someone was stealing, no taking, his things right out from under his nose.

At first he hadn't really been sure. A missing comb, a tee shirt, a padd or two he tried to explain away. But in the past three days his shirts from the nights previous were not found in the morning. He couldn't deny the truth any longer. _What the hell is going on?_

Standing under the hot water he made two decisions. One, he would talk to Lt. Tuvok. Two, he would stay awake tonight if it killed him.

* * *

Kathryn was in her ready room by 0800, coffee cup in hand, padds on her desk. Padds she would have loved to be able to concentrate on, if for no other reason than sheer distraction. She had to make a decision soon. Afraid for her sanity she contemplated talking to the Doctor. Perhaps there was an organic reason for her actions. She hadn't done this since she was a teenager, and then it was due to high stress. _Why now?_ Life on Voyager had been relatively peaceful the past few weeks with nothing more than a little trading to break up the monotony of their journey. In an effort to keep crew morale up she had allowed the holodecks to be used at whim, without individual's rationing. She herself had participated in many of the events that Tom, Harry and B'Elanna had staged and enjoyed every minute of it. She and Chakotay had been spending a lot of off-duty time together. Their strained relationship of the past year was changing again, for the better. They were laughing and talking and flirting just like old times. _Why now?_

Her door chimed. She knew before she answered who it would be.

"Come in." And sure enough as the door swooshed open, Chakotay strode in and sat in front of her desk.

"Good morning, Commander. Care for some coffee?" She tried to keep it light.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Chakotay sat he took a good look at Kathryn. Her face had a pinched look and there was no trace of a smile on her face as she greeted him. His radar went into overdrive and he made an instant decision to not approach her with his petty larceny problems.

"Good morning, Captain. No thank you to the coffee, I've had my tea already." He frantically tried to think of a reason to be there. "I was just wondering if you would care to have lunch with me today." He chose what he thought would be a non-threatening topic.

Kathryn's face took on a guarded look as she studied her cup intently.

"Kathryn? Are you all right?"

Her eyes rose to meet his and he actually thought he saw fear there, just for a fleeting moment. Then it was gone, replaced by the clear blue gaze he knew so well.

"I'm fine Chakotay. Yes, I would like to have lunch with you. Mess hall, say 1200 hours?"

"Thank you, I'll see you then." As he walked out, he could feel her eyes following him right up until the ready room doors shut. He sat slowly in his command chair trying to figure out what was wrong with the woman behind the door.

* * *

"Lt. Tuvok, I have a security matter I need to discuss. May we step over here?" Chakotay, still in command of the bridge and unable to leave, motioned the chief of security toward the back of his station away from the prying ears of the bridge crew. "And please keep your voice down.."

"Certainly, Commander."

As Chakotay told Tuvok his problem he could almost hear the Vulcan's wheels turning. Chakotay could offer no suspects and no explanation, only the barest of facts. Tuvok suggested two possibilities for determining the culprit. Check the transporter logs to see who may have done a site to site and check the lock sequence thread on Chakotay's door. Someone had to be able to override the lock. Chakotay had already thought of that but had hesitated to follow through for some reason. He mentally chastised himself and promised Tuvok to do so.

"Tuvok, would you take the bridge for an hour or so? I'd like to do my sleuthing now, before this goes any further. I'll inform the Captain."

"As you wish. Keep me posted."

Kathryn seemed a bit surprised at his request but offered no protest. He headed back to his quarters by way of the transporter room.

* * *

Kathryn's mind was in turmoil. She knew in her heart she had to tell Chakotay what was happening to her and apologize. She honestly couldn't imagine apologizing for something like this. _I'm sorry, Chakotay, but I've been stealing your clothes and wearing them to bed _... How in the world could she say that to him? And why hadn't he told her that someone was stealing his things? He should be coming to her with this, his friend, his captain. She felt herself being drawn deeper and deeper into a well and wasn't sure she could get herself out of it. Certainly not with any dignity still intact. And what the hell was wrong with her?

She called the Doctor on a secure channel and briefly, very briefly with no details, told him of her problem. She gave him a bit of her history to which he answered with hm-m-m's and well's. He asked her to stop by and get a checkup to which she reluctantly agreed. Though she knew she needed the examination she almost didn't want to know the truth. What if it was something serious. What if she was losing her mind?

* * *

The transporter logs yielded nothing as there had been no site-to-site transports into his quarters. Chakotay stopped by engineering and picked up a data downloader key for his tricorder from B'Elanna. She questioned him incessantly but he evaded and left. His mind was still trying to grapple with all the possibilities. Someone had to have access to command codes to override his door, which meant that someone had gotten those codes subversively, which meant that Voyager had a bigger problem on its hands than his missing clothing.

He stood at his door and attached the download key to his door pad. Once the tricorder was finished he went into his quarters and put the information into his console. While that was happening he replicated himself another cup of herbal tea and sat down to study the clues.

Last night, according to the data, a command code had been put in at 0217 hours. Command Code Janeway Beta 26. _Kathryn?!_ He quickly checked the two nights previous to that and found the same thing. _Kathryn is stealing my clothes? Why?!_ Stunned, he desperately attempted to wrap his mind around this.

He made a decision, thought about the implications, and went through with it anyway. He headed for her quarters to put in a command code override of his own.

* * *

Kathryn finished her examination with the Doctor. He, fortunately, found nothing medically untoward. They talked for awhile, but since she wouldn't divulge the entirety of her actions he couldn't be of much help. He could tell she was keeping him at arm's length and, in desperation, he offered her some light sleeping aids in an effort to relieve her obvious distress. If that didn't work, he told her, she could wear a cortical monitor so he could watch her for a few days. She left with the sleep-aid hypo sprays and headed to her quarters.

* * *

Chakotay, feeling decidedly uncomfortable, was looking around Kathryn's main room. He quickly scanned her desk checking the drawers and the padds on the surface. None were his. He reluctantly went into her bedroom. There was a part of him that really didn't believe what the data told him. Maybe his original hypothesis was still correct - someone had gotten Kathryn's command codes and for some reason was using them to gain access to his quarters. To steal his clothes. It sounded as ridiculous this time around as it had 20 minutes before.

So though he was partly prepared for what he found next, he wasn't at all prepared for how it affected him. There on her unmade bed was his blue shirt, the one he had worn last night. It was almost wadded up and lay where she would have slept, right by her pillow. His knees felt weak so he sat on the edge of the bed and picking up the shirt he put it to his face. It smelled of him and it smelled of her. He felt his throat constrict, his heart aching once more for Kathryn - the woman - to give him what he so desperately wanted. Her unconditional love. He sat holding the shirt in his hands, resting on his knees, seeing only through a blur of unshed tears.

He didn't hear the door opening.

* * *

Kathryn stood in her bedroom doorway unable to move. She couldn't really believe what she was seeing. Her rational mind was trying to reconcile what her emotional side could not deal with. Then she saw Chakotay reach up and wipe the corner of his eye and take a shaky breath. Her heart screamed out inside her head to do something, fix this, explain, make him understand....

"Chakotay, I..." He whirled his head to look at her and she saw both pain and love in his eyes. "I'm so sorry... I can explain... well sort of I can. Please, don't be angry with me..."

"I'm not angry, Kathryn."

She ventured closer to the bed. Her legs were feeling a little weak so she perched herself on the edge next to him, desperately trying to still the pounding of her heart with some deep breaths.

"I... well, it appears that I've started ... sleepwalking again. I mean I had some trouble with it when I was a teenager... I don't know why I've been doing what I've been doing, I only know what I've done. You see... I wake up in the morning ... wearing your shirt. I dream ...." She couldn't go on.

Chakotay's heart was beating erratically. He turned and took her hands in his and stared into her eyes. He couldn't let her off the hook yet, he desperately wanted to understand what the hell was going on inside that steel cage of a mind she had. _Sleepwalking? The subconscious mind taking over the unconscious body..._

"What do you dream, Kathryn?"

Kathryn looked deeply into his dark brown eyes. She saw no judgment, felt no pity or blame. She knew Chakotay wasn't going to let her off easily and she also knew that there was a big part of her that didn't want him to. She wondered if he could hear her heart thudding against the walls of her chest.

"I dream of you. Walking with you, touching you, feeling you near me. Sometimes we're in the woods, sometimes on the pacific coast heading towards the beach and I can smell your scent surrounding me and I feel safe. And loved. And in love."

"I see. Do you like these dreams?" His eyes bore into her.

"Yes, very much. I don't want to wake up." She didn't flinch from his gaze.

"And so why do _you_ think you're coming into my quarters at night and taking a part of me to bed with you?" He had a small grin playing on the corners of his mouth.

Kathryn made a little chortling noise. "Well, when you put it that way it does seem rather obvious, doesn't it? My subconscious is making the decision for me."

"What decision?"

"The decision to give in to my feelings for you."

"And what feelings might those be?"

"You're not making this easy for me are you?"

"No."

She stared at him and tried to breathe. "My feelings of love for you."

"So you love me?"

"Cha_ko_tay! Yes. I. Love. You. Satisfied?"

"Not yet. Do you still know that I love you?"

"Yes, I still know that. But Chakotay, why were you crying earlier?"

"Because I smelled your scent mixed with mine, and I thought that would be the only time I would know what that was like. But now..."

"Now?"

He took her face in his hands and placing his lips on hers gave her a tender, delicious kiss. She felt herself melting as she returned it with one of her own. Soon all thoughts of the ship and the crew were completely gone from their minds.

* * *

Sometime later, lying in each other's arms blissfully content and sated, Chakotay looked deeply into her eyes.

"You know, Kathryn, next time you want something from me you only have to ask."

She pondered this for a minute or two.

"Chakotay?"

"Hm-m-m?"

"Would you call Tuvok for me and tell him he has the bridge for the rest of the day? And then would you do again what you did to me 20 minutes ago?"

"Twenty or fifteen?"

"Oh, definitely twenty, though fifteen and even ten would be fine, too."

Rolling her under him with a full dimple smile, he reached for his comm badge.   


Tuvok was sure he heard giggling in the background...   
  
  


The end.

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